When Jack and Denny Smith decided to build a vacation dream house in Baja, California, they had no idea they were entering a phase of their lives “that would capture the fancy of readers throughout the United States.” Through a series of strange and whimsical adventures, they would find that building a house takes God and Mr. Gomez.

As their house took form first in their imaginations and then on paper, little things went wrong along the way. The building site had a way of moving slightly each time they visited it, and by the time the foundation was laid, it had moved to the middle of the road. Gomez got around that by simply moving the road. Fortunately, Gomez was always on hand to provide the solution, with the philosophy that all practical problems can be solved—with a little time and a little tequila.